Question
Can change be managed in organisations?
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Can change be managed in organisations?
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Yes, I believe that change can and should be managed within organizations. Unfortunately, this is very rarely the case. I am involved within an organization where greater emphasis on managing change would have had far reaching consequences for all involved. I recently came across a great resource on change management published by the Center for Creative Leadership: Leading with Authenticity in Times of Transition, by K.A. Bunker and M. Wakefield 2005. This book provides an excellent model for managing change and speaks of the importance of successfully managing the structural side of the change as well as the relational side. If both of these are managed carefully and kept in the right tension, transition does not need to be negative but can really be a positive force within any organization.
Yes, I think it can. But “managed” is a loaded word. I don’t think it can be controlled. But it can be managed.
Thanks for your comments.
First up, I beleive we need to be optimistic about our ability as humans to deal with the ever changing nature of our workplaces and economies. We have no choice but to be optimistic I believe.
Secondly, my question stems from an encounter I had with someone who wanted to pretty much throw a change management programme at the issue of retiring Boomers in their business. I asked him what he meant by change management, and his answer was “I don’t know … but it must be done”.
This got me thinking about how, now that change management is an established discipline, we revert to solutions that have been successful in the past without really understandingwhat the problem really needs in terms of being solved. It seems to be that Change Management has become the de facto solution to any organisational issue that has a whiff of change invovled.
Having the privelege of established soltions and tools under the umbrella of Change Management really make sus lazy in terms of really getting to grips with the issues/problems we face in organisations.
I am convinced that having such a fall-back solution allows us to presuppose that change is necessary when encountering a problem. How do we really know this if we do not understand the nature of the problem. I beleive we can only decide a course of action when we have sufficiently udnerstand the problem and the emergent needs that specific problem requires. It might just be a best practice solution, or it might just not be. The solution might just be to reaffirm things as the currently stand without necessarily restrucring things. The key here is to be intentional in assessing the situation. Clue: the tool here is Narrative.
So, my opinion is that change can be and cannot be managed. The best we can do is be intentional about the change we experience in roganisations. So, when it comes to prescripted, structural changes we can do our best to consider how these changes will affect the people and how best to minimise the negative effects of the change.
But then our organsiations must also be agile enough to cope with the inimitable winds of change that sweep through our corridors in an episodic manner. Again, being intentional about how create organisations that are adaptable and engaging (not necessarily reslient!) of change will be a key differentiator in the connection economy.
I personally would like to see more small changes that make a difference, even if they are small differences. It seems many managements in many different companies ignore these things to their respective company’s detriment. A hundred incremental changes, here and there, can add up.
I can’t say why there is resistance to such changes, but my gut feeling is that they are perceived as being too much trouble. They don’t have a lot of time in the hours they have, so the little changes they could make get swept under the rug — a mistake in my opinion.